“光之城”，我的家

文/讓·塔凱 譯/袁曉琳 審訂/張海榕

“光之城”，我的家

文/讓·塔凱 譯/袁曉琳 審訂/張海榕

“It will be nice to be home for a month, right?” My friend smiled,expecting an affirmative rejoinder2rejoinder（機智的）應答；（尖銳的）反駁。. I smiled too, as I knew what he meant, but I gently replied, “The US is home for my family, but Paris is my home now.”

[2] My recent month Stateside was full of activity―one sister got married at the start of it and another one had a baby at the end of it and all the while I carried on running my businesses while catching up with old friends.

[3] Home. In the seven years I lived in Kansas City it wasn’t long before I felt that warm sensation33 sensation感覺。upon returning there from a trip. Home was near family. Home was where my friends lived. Where my business was growing.Where my staff worked. Home was where my bed was―where I had a fireplace and where I could quietly cook breakfast. But as I look at these characteristics, even now, I realize I am describing comfort. And yes, a component of home iscomfort. But that’s only part of it. That’s the present.

[4] Home. There’s also the past. You need to feel a rootedness4rootedness根深蒂固，牢不可破。and a sense of belonging. But that was a tenuous55 tenuous脆弱的；空洞無力的。position for me in KC. Yes, I finished an undergraduate degree there and built a productive company. But it was self-made.Perhaps that desire to connect with the past was why I loved St. Louis so much. Not only did I have relatives buried in that city,but in the one year I lived there I felt the comfort of knowing that when a branch of my family had emigrated from Europe(from England, Ireland, and Alsace), that they settled in Southern Illinois and the St. Louis area. Yes, Kansas City was in Missouri, but the St. Louis side of the state was actually tied up with my family history too. Rootedness and community―people who know your name, your habits, your history, and your family. That’s home too.That’s the past.

[5] Home. Home is the future too. I have some truly lifelong friends in KC that I cherish time with whenever I visit.As I built my life in that area all sorts of ideas were mooted6moot提出……供討論。as I considered a lifelong stay. The University of Missouri at Kansas City had a fully funded Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship that would have offered a leisurely career in academia, but it didn’t excite me,and given my experience teaching a couple semesters as an adjunct7adjunct助手。in an MBA program, it was clear that the hierarchical8hierarchical等級制度的。setup99 setup〈非正式〉體制；組織方式。in a university setting wasn’t for me. I thought about buying into businesses, and went so far as preliminary discussions with some principals of those companies. But none of it inspired me in the visceral10visceral（未經過認真思考而）出自內心的，發自肺腑的。manner that Paris did.

[6] Home. Knowing you are where you belong now, with roots in the past,and a future to look forward to. That all comes together for me in Europe, in Paris, deep in my bones.

[7] As I took in the mountain of data I considered my own case. I wasn’t fl eeing war, as so many are in Europe these days. I wasn’t seeking a better life economically.Indeed my experience at the time of just selling a business should have encouraged me to stay. I had moved to a US city with no connections, and with some of my own funds, a couple of investors, and a co-founder, built a company from nothing to one that successfully sold and transitioned to a new owner. I could simply wash,rinse, and repeat if I chose, with little interference and regulation from the US government.

[8] When I immigrated to the United States in 1988, I was already a citizen,but the move wasn’t my choice. In 2013 I came to France as a noncitizen,but entirely by choice. And like many immigrants before me, I jumped through legal hoops while setting up the infrastructure for my own businesses to be based in my new country. I didn’t come here to “get a job.” I came here to build a life.

[9] I’ve always been an optimist,but it’s only recently I’ve realized that immigration―of whatever kind or character―is a supreme act of hope,not just for the “better life” which is,seemingly the only reason ever mentioned in news stories about immigration, but because it is such a big task to make and create a new home. Getting a new job,a new house, learning the ins and outs11ins and outs來龍去脈。of a city―these things are not so hard.But building another home―tying those long, colorful, and winding threads of past, present, and future into a coherent tapestry, that’s hard. That’s perhaps why those of us who weren’t born here love it so much, because we don’t take any part of this experience for granted. ■

“回家待上一個月，感覺不錯吧？”我的朋友笑道，以為我會說是。明白他的意思，我不置可否，只是輕聲回答：“美國是我的家鄉，而如今我以巴黎為家。”

[2]我在美國的這個月可謂應酬不斷，一位姐妹在月初嫁人，另一位在月末生娃，我一邊忙于生意，一邊會見老友。

[3]家。我在堪薩斯城生活的七年中，很早便感受到了外出歸來后的溫馨怡人。家意味著與家人相依；家鄉是我朋友們生活的地方、我事業成長的沃土、我的員工工作的樂園；家里有我的床榻和壁爐，在這里，我可以靜靜地烹調早餐。如今回首，發現這些特點都是對舒適的描述，是啊，家的一個要素就是舒適度，但這畢竟只是一部分。此為家所承載的現在。

[4]家也代表著過去。你需在此獲得一種根基感和歸屬感。但這種感覺我在堪薩斯城卻鮮有體會。的確，我在堪薩斯讀完了大學，還創建了一家公司，生意興隆，但在那里我是白手起家、自力更生的。或許我對圣路易斯的深愛正是源于過去的牽絆，我的親人長眠于此，我也在此生活一年，欣然得知我的家族支系何時遷離歐洲（英國、愛爾蘭、阿爾薩斯）并定居于伊利諾斯州南部和圣路易斯區域——是的，堪薩斯也屬于密蘇里州，但實際上，是該州的圣路易斯區域與我的家族歷史密切相關。家鄉是根基，是社區，是那些熟知你姓名、習慣、過去和家族的人們所在的地方。是以家也蘊含著過往。

[5]家還孕育著未來。我在堪薩斯城結交了一些摯友并珍惜每次與其相聚的時光。在這兒營造新生活的期間，我曾考慮過要永久定居下來，當時權衡了各種方案。攻讀密蘇里大學堪薩斯分校的企業學博士學位能獲得全額資助，走上悠閑的學術生涯，但這并未使我動心。我曾在工商管理碩士培養班當過兩個學期的助教，很明顯大學機構中的等級制度并不適合我。我也曾考慮過入股公司，甚至和那些公司的負責人進行過初步的商討。但這些都不及巴黎令我心動。

[6]家就是我所歸屬的現在、我所依附的過去以及我所期盼的將來，這一切感受深植于我骨髓，在歐洲、在巴黎一齊涌現。

[7]我在查閱成堆的移民資料的同時，思索自己移民巴黎的原因。和如今其他許多移民歐洲的人不同，我不是為了躲避戰爭，也并非為了改善經濟狀況，實際上，當時我的公司剛被收購，我的創業經歷本應促使我留在美國。我初到美國一個城市時，毫無人脈，僅僅憑借一些個人資金，找到兩三位投資者和一個合作人，便創建了一家公司，將其從一無所有逐漸做大做強并最終出售轉手他人。如果我想，我完全可以在一個新的城市從頭再來，再造輝煌，也幾乎不受政府的干涉和管制。

[8]我于1988年移民美國，當時已是一名公民，但這次遷居并非我主動選擇的。2013年我來法國時還是非公民，卻完全出于自愿。同之前眾多的移民者一樣，初來乍到，我得跨越法律上的重重阻礙為自己的事業建好基礎設施。我來這里不是為了“謀生”，而是為了打造一種生活。

[9]我一直是個樂天派，但也是最近才意識到，無論何種形式何種性質的移民都孕育著一種至高無上的希望。這不僅因為移民能帶來“更好的生活”（這似乎是新聞報道里唯一提到的關于移民的原因了），還因為移民意味著創建新家，任務艱巨。找到新工作，住進新房子，學習在一個城市生活的種種要領，這些都不算難，難的是要創建一個新家——將紛繁復雜的過去、現在和未來的多彩長線編織成和諧的綾羅錦緞。我們深知其中不易，從未視其理所當然，這大概就是為什么我們這些人雖未生于巴黎，卻如此熱愛這座城市。 □

The Story of My Adventures in the City of Light1光之城，巴黎的別稱。

ByJean Taquet

（譯者單位：河海大學外國語學院）